Conan The Valiant Part 9

"There will be little else in that purse," the dealer grunted. "Oh, well and good. For what you're offering, I can hardly throw in much beyond the bridle and bit."

That was no loss. Mishrak had ordered Conan and Raihna to scatter his gold widely about Aghrapur. They would purchase their remaining horses from other dealers, their saddles and tack from still others, and so on.

Conan was prepared to obey. Reluctantly, because he knew little of Mishrak's reasons and those he suspected he much disliked. But he would obey. To make an enemy of both Mishrak and Houma would mean leaving Aghrapur with more haste than dignity.

Conan was footloose enough not to mourn if that was his fate. He was proud enough to want a worthier foe than Houma to drive him forth.

The dealer was still calling on the G.o.ds to witness his imminent ruin when Conan and Raihna led the horse out the gate. In the street beyond, she stopped, gripped the bridle with one hand and the mane with the other, and swung herself on to the horse's back.

"So you can mount unaided and ride bareback," the Cimmerian growled.

Raihna had managed no small feat, but he'd be cursed if she'd know it from him! "Small help that will be, when we take this great lump into the mountains. He'll starve in a week, if he doesn't break a leg or maybe his rider's neck sooner."

"I know that, Conan."

"Then why take him at all?"

"There's a good long ride across open country before we reach the mountains. If we took mountain horses all the way, it would take longer. Time is something we may not have.

"Also, mountain horses would tell those watching us too much about where we are going. We would be followed and perhaps run down, because those who followed would surely ride heavy mounts! Do you deny that we are being watched?"

"I think that fruitseller over there-and don't look, for Erlik's sake!-is the same man as the painter who followed us yesterday."

"You told me of neither."

"Crom! I didn't think you needed telling!"

Raihna flushed. "You were hiding nothing from me?"

"I'm not that big a fool. You may not know Agh-rapur, but you'll be fighting beside me until this witling's errand is done!"

"I am grateful, Conan."

"How grateful, may I ask?" he grinned.

The flush deepened, but she smiled. "You may ask. I do not swear to answer." She sobered. "The next time, remember that what I know of Aghrapur, I know from Mishrak. Anything you can teach me about this city will be something I need not learn from the lord of spies!"

"Now I'll listen to that. I'd teach a serpent or a spider to spare him needing to learn from Mishrak!"

Raihna reached down and gripped Conan's ma.s.sive shoulder. Her grip was as strong as many a man's, but no man could have doubted that those fingers were a woman's.

They pa.s.sed on down the street in silence for another hundred paces. At last Conan lifted his water bottle, drank, then spat the dust from his mouth into the street.

"I'd lay a year's pay on Mishrak having it in mind to use us as bait,"

he said. "What think you?"

"Much the same," Raihna replied. "I would be less easy if Illyana were not so determined to come to grips with Eremius. It is not just ending the danger of the Jewels of Kurag that she seeks. It is vengeance for what she suffered at his hands." Her tone made it plain she would not speak of those sufferings.

"If your mistress is going to join us on Mishrak's hook, she'd best be able to ride anything we put under her. This is no stroll in a country garden!"

"My mistress is a better rider than I am. Remember that Bossonia is in great part hill country." That explained her stride, so familiar and so pleasing to Conan's eye.

Raihna's voice hardened. "Also, her father was a great landowner. He kept more horses than I saw before I left home." Her voice hinted of a tale Conan would have gladly heard, if he'd dreamed she would tell him a word of it.

Conan sought a subject more pleasing to both of them. "Will bringing the Jewels together end the danger? Perhaps they'll be safer apart."

"There is no corruption in Illyana!" Raihna snapped.

"I didn't say it was her I doubted," Conan replied. At least he doubted her no more than any other wizard, and perhaps less than some. "I was thinking of other wizards, or even common thieves. Oh well, once we have the Jewels they'll be a boil on Mishrak's a.r.s.e and not ours!"

"Hssst! Ranis!" Yakoub whispered.

"Tamur!" The guard called him by the name under which Yakoub had dealt with him.

"Softly, please. Are you alone?"

Ranis shrugged. "One man only. I could hardly travel alone to this quarter without arousing suspicion."

"True enough." Yakoub covertly studied Ranis's companion. Given no time to flee or call for help, he would be even less trouble than his master.

"So, Ranis. What brings you here? I already know that you failed."

Ranis could not altogether hide his surprise. He had the sense not to ask how Yakoub knew this. Indeed, he suspected Yakoub would not have needed Houma's aid to hear of a fight that left seven men dead or maimed in an alley of the Saddlemakers' Quarter.

"I want to try again. My honor demands that I try again."

Yakoub swallowed blistering words about the honor of those who flee and leave comrades dead behind them. Instead he smiled his most charming smile. "That speaks well of you. What think you will be needed, to once more face the Cimmerian? Remember, the tale in the streets runs that any man who faces him is cursed for self-destruction!"

"I can believe that. I've seen him fight twice. But by all the G.o.ds, no barbarian is invincible! Even if he were, he's insulted my lord and me twice over!"

So Ranis had enough honor to recognize an insult when it was given? A pity he had not enough to recognize the need of dying with his men, thereby saving Yakoub a trifle of work. Not that the work would be dangerous, save for the odd chance, but there was always that.

Part of Yakoub's disguise as a crippled veteran was a staff nearly his own height. A single thrust crushed the throat of Ranis's companion before he knew that he faced an armed foe.

The staff whirled, then swept in a low arc as Yakoub sought to take Ranis's legs out from under him. Ranis leaped high and came down on Yakoub's unguarded left side. Or at least, the side he thought unguarded. The staff seemed to leap into his path and that of his sword. The blade sank into wood, met steel, and rebounded. Before Ranis could recover, one end of the staff smashed against his temple. He staggered, sword hand loosening its grip but desperation raising his arm once more to guard.

He was too slow to stop the lead-shod end of the staff from driving into his skull squarely between his eyes. Ranis flew backward as if kicked by a mule, striking the wall and sliding down to slump lifeless in the filth of the tavern's rear yard.

Yakoub saw that Ranis's companion had died of his crushed throat and would need no mercy steel. Kneeling beside each body in succession, he closed their eyes and placed their weapons in their hands. Such was honorable treatment. Also, to any who did not look too closely at the wounds, it would seem that they had slain each other in some petty quarrel.

Doubtless Mishrak would be suspicious, when word reached him. By that time, however, the bodies would be too far gone to tell anyone without magic at his command very much. Not less important to Yakoub, he himself would be some distance on the road back to the mountains and his work there. His saving Bora's father Rhafi should a.s.sure him, if not a hero's wel-come, at least freedom from awkward questions.

"You know what to do," Conan said to the four tribesmen. "Have you any questions, besides when you will be paid?"

The men grinned. The eldest shrugged. "This is no matter for pay, as you well know. But-we cannot kill those who would steal what is yours?"

"He whom I now serve wishes live prisoners, who may tell him what he needs to know."

"Ah," the man said. He sounded much relieved. "Then you have not grown weak, Conan. Those who live may yet be killed afterward. Do you think your master will let us do the work for him?"